A NOTE OF THANKS TO ALL OF YOU AND SOME ANNOUNCEMENTS

I’ve been meaning to write a note of thanks to all of you for supporting our site over the course of this past season, so here it is: Thanks! When I took over this site in August, there had been many talented writers who had written in this space – some of whom had gone on to much cooler things – but we had just lost our ESPN affiliation and while I was happy to keep writing stuff here and see what happened, I had no idea how long it would last and honestly, I didn’t expect it to get through the end of the season. Fortunately, we were #blessed with a really fun year of the Blazers to write about, as at least my writing here soon moved from actually trying to recap games and provide serious insights to instead attempting to capture the experience of Blazer fandom (something I know a lot more about) with each game of the season as a different window into that experience. Yet even as fun as the season quickly became, I still would not have lasted running this blog without Corbin joining the cause, as well as the contributions of Grady O’Brien, Lindsay Mills, Jack Ward, Tron Burgundy, Gage Hamilton, and the Rip Citizens squad.

So big thanks to everyone – you/them/us/everyone on Twitter for joining in our nonsensical in-game conversations/the people that linked to our stuff (Blazer’s Edge, Ball Don’t Lie, Willamette Week for including us on the list of 26 Reasons to Love Portland, etc.) – for allowing us to find, survive, and grow in this fun weird niche of the Blazers mediasphere.

As for the offseason, we’ll be doing our best to keep it all going through the draft, Summer League, and not to mention the upcoming revolution spearheaded by Corbin Smith that y’all will find yourselves so enveloped in so very soon. My presence might get a little sparser around these parts, as I’ll be working on a separate project for most of June and into July (and no, contrary to several reports, it is not the proposed site within ESPN.com in which Corbin and I write semi-fictional accounts of us playing Subbuteo with various historical dictators). Then at the end of July, I’m moving to New York to go to graduate school, so while I’ll still be around here, hopefully still running the site and writing periodically, I won’t be able to write nearly as much as I did this past season which brings me to my last announcement…

We need some more writers! If you like us or don’t like us and just like writing stuff about the Blazers, please email me at the portlandroundballsociety@gmail.com address. If you have clips, send those too. If you don’t have clips, no worries, email me anyway. And don’t feel the need to be funny or weird or caps-locked or include dragon references or anything else, we’re just looking for talented people who can write in whatever way comes naturally to them, so long as it’s interesting and engaging and vaguely related to the Blazers. Unfortunately we can’t pay you in anything more than smiley emoticons, but once you get beyond the rookie phase in which Corbin stands over you and shouts random obscenities as you try to compose paragraphs while I glare a Sheedian glare at you through Skype dressed in a full Walt Williams outfit complete with high socks—after that phase—you will have so much fun! I promise!

Adam

Thanks Joe, Corbin, etc. I had a great time reading everything on this site throughout the season. Reading your recaps of Blazers losses always made me feel less depressed and alone! Joe, have fun in New York, we’ll miss you. I assume you will be riding a magical Will Barton unicorn across the country?!? You’re sure to have many exciting/free-spirited adventures along the way.

Steve

This site has been amazing. Half the time I don’t know what’s going on but that’s OK ’cause dragons are cool.